Expectations of Fatherhood
by Lear's Daughter
Summary: When Jack finds out he has a five-year-old child, who does he turn to for help? Lemon, of course. A reversal of the usual Liz-has-a-child stories. Jack/Liz
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: 30 Rock belongs to Tina Fey.

* * *

Jack Donaghy sighed and rubbed at his forehead. He squinted at his computer screen, the glow hurting his eyes as he tried to find a way for Lemon to keep both her straws and the exterminator the next time GE needed to cut back. He'd been at work for too many hours. Even Kenneth had gone home, which meant they were reaching the earliest hours of the morning.

The phone rang.

"Yes?" he said.

"There's a call for you, Mr. Donaghy," Jonathon said. Jack's assistant never went home before Jack did. He was always hoping (secretly and not so secretly) that Jack would offer him a ride, but he never had. "It's about an Alice Miller?"

Jack immediately saved his spreadsheet and closed all the files on his computer. It looked like he was done with work for the night after all.

"Put it through," he said. There was a click. "This is Jack Donaghy."

"Mr. Donaghy, this is Lawrence Howe of Kanwe, Eatem and Howe, LLP."

"You're a lawyer?"

"That's correct."

"I haven't been in touch with Alice Miller in six years, so why is she having a lawyer contact me now?"

Lawrence Howe cleared his throat. "Mr. Donaghy, I regret to inform you that Alice Miller passed away three days ago."

Jack closed his eyes, which suddenly seemed to be burning. "How?" he croaked.

"It was a car accident." There was a careful pause. "I'm told she didn't suffer."

Jack focused on breathing in and out for several long seconds. "I appreciate the call, but why are you telling me this? I can't be a beneficiary in her will. She hated me."

"Actually, in a way you are. You see…when Alice Miller left you, she was a little over one month pregnant."

Jack dropped the phone. He stared at his own wall. His ears rang.

Distantly, he realized that he could hear Howe squeaking, "Hello? Hello?" and he picked up the phone again.

"Are you saying I have a child?" Jack asked thickly.

"It's your name on the birth certificate. As the father, you automatically gain custody of Alex after Alice's death."

"Custody…Custody of _Alex_?"

"That's right. Alex Donaghy Miller."

A smile flitted across his lips at the name. So, Alice hadn't totally written him out of their child's life. That was something.

"Are you able to come pick Alex up from Chicago in the next few days? This is a difficult time for—"

"I'll be there tomorrow," Jack interrupted. "You can provide my assistant with the details and he'll take care of the arrangements."

He transferred the call back to Jonathon's line and then for a while he just sat there, mind and heart racing at this new and unexpected complication to his life. He was a _father_. He had a _son_.

Oh, God. He was a father. He had a son.

He collected himself enough to call for his town car and gather his briefcase and overcoat. By the time he left his office Jonathon had finished speaking to the lawyer and was making travel arrangements.

"Tell the pilot there'll be two flying to Chicago and three coming back," Jack told him as he walked out.

"Two? Does that mean I'm coming with you, sir?" Jonathon asked eagerly.

Jack shot him a look and his assistant deflated with a resentful sigh.

"Of course you'll take _her_," Jonathon muttered.

Twenty minutes later found Jack knocking furiously on a door, not caring that he might be waking the neighbors. He stopped when he heard a muffled thump and curse from the apartment. Footsteps approached, the door opened, and there she was, glaring at him from beneath ridiculously messy hair and wearing a truly hideous set of mismatched pajamas.

"Jack, it's three o'clock in the morning on a _Tuesday_. What the hell?"

"Lemon," Jack breathed, mind battered under waves of excitement and fear and sorrow and delight, "I'm a father."

Lemon's mouth hung open far enough for him to make out the curves of her retainer. "Say what now?"

Since she didn't seem to be in the right frame of mind to invite him in, he pushed past her and waited for her to close the door. He made a beeline for the loose floorboard under which she liked to hide her Sabor de Soledad; there were three bags there now and he took one for himself and offered another to her. She shook her head and pulled an already open bag out from under a seat cushion. She pulled out her retainer and put it in her pocket.

"What do you _mean_ you're a father, Jack?"

He began to pace, and punctuated his words with bites of the disgusting chips. "Six or seven years ago, I was going out with a woman named Alice Miller. She was a lot like you—democrat, female, two-syllable last name—but, unlike you, the more time she spent with me the more she decided that I was all wrong for her. She left me and I never heard from her again."

Lemon was sitting cross-legged on the couch with the bag in her lap and watching him pace, her head swiveling as if she were at a tennis match. "Oh no, don't tell me—"

"She was pregnant. I have a son, Alex Donaghy Miller. Alice died three days ago, which means I get custody."

"Oh boy. So you're saying that you now have sole custody of a, what, a five-year-old boy? Poor kid."

Lemon had a real gift for saying just the wrong thing. It was one of the things he liked about her, usually. In this instance, he had to fight a strong urge to throttle her.

"You've got to help me, Lemon," he said, not above begging.

She clutched the bag to her chest as if to protect herself. "Me? What do you expect me to do?"

"You've been trying to adopt for over a year now."

Her eyes were huge. "You don't mean…"

He stared blankly at her.

She coughed. "Of course that's not what you meant."

"Good God, Lemon!" he exclaimed, realizing what she'd been asking. "_No_, I'm not inviting you to adopt my son. But you have all those maternal instincts, and it would be good practice for you to try them out on Alex in preparation for when an adoption agency finally decides you can be trusted with a miniature human being."

She bit her lip. "I don't know, Jack. I mean, I'm happy to help, but I've been preparing for an infant, not a—"

"Excellent," he said brusquely, dropping his half-empty bag of chips on her couch. "I need to go child-proof my apartment. Jonathon will get in contact with you tonight or tomorrow morning with the details of our flight."

"I'm sorry, our flight?"

"Don't forget to rinse your retainer before you put it back in," he told her as he made for the door.

"What flight, Jack?" she called after him.

"You're a life saver, Lemon!" he shouted back as the door shut behind him.

* * *

Flying with Liz Lemon was always a somewhat disturbing enterprise. She was a nervous flyer but refused to take any of Dr. Spaceman's very effective medication after the last time. ("With my luck," she'd told Jack just before takeoff, "I'd think you were Alec Baldwin and I'd be all over you." "Don't be silly, Lemon," he'd replied. "If you were going to confuse me for anyone it would be Harrison Ford.") Out of some strange sense of solidarity, he, too, had abstained from self-medicating, which meant that his own fear of flying was allowed to have free reign.

By the time the jet had landed and coasted to a stop, Lemon and Jack were holding hands with a mutual death grip and Jack had once again learned more details of Lemon's traumatic life than he ever wanted to know. ("I ate a slug on a dare when I was in college! I've never had an orgasm during intercoursing! The only straight guy I kissed in high school turned out to be a hermaphrodite!")

Pale, exhausted, Jack pried his hand out of Lemon's. "We never speak of this again," he said.

She nodded fervently.

They took a car to the lawyer's office where Alex was supposed to be waiting for them. Lemon kept shooting him sidelong glances the whole way.

"What?" he demanded at last.

"Aren't you excited? You're about to meet your son! Don't you wonder what he's like?"

"He's a Donaghy, Lemon," Jack said, his chest swelling with pride at the thought. "He'll be just like me—smart, handsome, a fast talker. It's in his blood."

Lemon rolled her eyes, but she was grinning.

The offices of Kanwe, Eatem and Howe were the same as any other smarmy law firm's. Jack felt right at home as he walked up to the receptionist and asked for Lawrence Howe. The lawyer—who must have been the son of the named partner, as he was too young to be the Howe in the firm's name—came out five minutes later.

"You must be Jack Donaghy," he said. They shook hands. He caught sight of Lemon. "Is this your wife?"

Jack chuckled and Lemon made a face. "This is Liz Lemon, my platonic friend and co-worker."

"I'm here for moral support," Lemon said.

"That's very kind of you," Lawrence Howe said, clasping Lemon's hand in both of his. She flushed.

"I'd like to see Alex now," Jack said, interrupting their little moment.

Lawrence Howe flashed a winning smile at Lemon—couldn't she tell the guy was a slime ball?—and said, too smoothly, "Of course. This way, please."

He led them down a short hallway to a conference room with a closed door. "Alex is in here," the lawyer said. "Do you need to take a minute?"

Jack shook his head, held his breath, and pushed the door open.

Only to cough violently at what he saw. Lemon whacked him on the back a few times as if that would somehow help. When he finally regained the ability to breathe, she had already stepped around him to approach Alex, who was sitting in a tall swivel chair, legs dangling a good distance above the ground.

"Hello, Alex," Lemon said, grinning broadly. "I'm Liz Lemon, a friend of your dad's. Call me Liz."

Alex nodded shyly.

Jack stared.

"Alex," Lawrence Howe said, "this is Jack Donaghy, your father. Mr. Donaghy, this is your daughter."

It was a true sign of how badly Lemon had corrupted him that all Jack could think was: _Twist!_


	2. Chapter 2

A daughter. He had a daughter. And not just any daughter. No, Alex—Alexis? Alexandra? It had to be short for something, right?—Donaghy Miller was short and chubby, with frizzy reddish-brown hair, freckles, and glasses so thick she could have been a geriatric librarian.

"Jack?" Lemon prompted.

With effort he tore his gaze away from the girl to meet Lemon's eyes. She raised her eyebrows as if to say, _Do something!_

So he did. He grabbed Lawrence Howe by the arm and yanked him from the room and down the hall, pushed him into the men's room, and locked the door behind them.

"That is not my child!" Jack hissed.

The lawyer was staring at him as if he were insane. "Legally, she's your daughter," he said cautiously. "You can run a DNA test to contest paternity if you'd like. I don't understand your change of heart."

Jack glared at him, breathing heavily. "I thought I was coming here to pick up a _boy_. Alex is a _boy's_ name. I was not prepared for—for—_that!_"

Now Howe was starting to look angry. "_That_," he said coldly, "is a little girl who has just lost her mother and whose father just took one look at her and ran away. She isn't the problem here, Mr. Donaghy—you are."

Jack opened his mouth to reply, then shut it again. Howe was right. He'd opened that door prepared to see a miniature Jack Donaghy. He hadn't known what to do when confronted with a miniature Liz Lemon.

"You're right," he said grudgingly. "I'm sorry for my behavior."

The lawyer stared hard at him, assessing, then nodded and straightened his tie. "It's good that you brought Liz along," he said as they walked back down the hall. "At least we didn't leave Alex alone."

"Lemon's only experience with children has come from kidnapping them," Jack said, pushing open the door to the conference room. "We'll be lucky if they're both in one—" He stopped and gaped.

"So then I reminded your dad that he was _Jack Donaghy_, which meant that he could do anything, even act. Then he told me how totally awesome I was for helping him—well, not in those exact words, but that's what he meant—and he went out on that stage and did great. So, you see, your dad gets scared sometimes when he has to do something new, but he always comes through in the end."

Lemon was sitting in a chair facing Alex, their knees touching, holding the little girl's hands, smiling encouragingly. Alex was listening intently, her eyes glued to Lemon's face.

"Is she single?" Howe murmured to Jack.

"Yes, but she killed and ate her last three boyfriends," Jack told him. He stepped further into the room, drawing Lemon's and Alex's attention. He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry about my reaction before, Alex. I was just surprised. It's very nice to meet you."

Alex slid off the chair to her feet, still holding one of Lemon's hands. "Hi," she mouthed, so quietly he wasn't entirely sure she'd spoken. It occurred to him that if he hadn't raced from the room like a frightened schoolchild it might have been _his_ hand that his daughter was now holding.

Lemon got up too, beaming down at the girl. "Alex and I were just discussing the fact that it's okay to be scared sometimes, even when you're a grown-up."

Feeling generous, Jack said, "Lemon's a very intelligent woman, Alex. You should listen to her."

Alex grinned up at Lemon and sidled even closer to her, pressing against her leg.

"Are we ready to go?" Lemon asked.

"Alex has her clothes and necessities here and some of Alice's friends are going to pack up more of her effects and mail them to New York," Howe said. "You can leave whenever Alex is ready."

Lemon knelt to look Alex in the eye. "Are you ready to go on a big private airplane?"

"I like to fly," she mumbled.

Lemon glanced at Jack and they shared a shudder.

"Great! Come on, we'll let the guys get the luggage," Lemon said. "Maybe you can tell me the story of Mr. Bear on the way out."

Mr. Bear, it seemed, was a stuffed bear that Alex snatched off of the table as they made their way out the door. There were a suitcase and a backpack leaning against one wall. Jack grabbed them both and followed with Howe at his heels. The driver loaded the luggage into the trunk and Jack told Lemon, "Why don't you girls wait in the car while I ask Mr. Howe a few questions?"

Lemon shot him a look—possibly at being called a girl, though she could also have been experiencing indigestion—but obeyed, tugging gently at Alex's hand to get her to slide into the back seat.

Jack faced Howe. "I'll be doing a DNA test when I get back to New York," he said. "What happens if it's negative?"

Howe shook his head. "There would be no way of knowing who her true father was, in that case. She'd probably go into foster care."

"I see. And what about her inheritance from her mother? The house, accounts, et cetera?"

"The house and most of her effects will be sold, per Alice's instructions, with the money put into a trust fund that I will manage for Alex until she turns twenty-one."

Jack nodded. He looked at the car and felt a surge of trepidation. His daughter was in that car. His daughter was alone with _Lemon_ in that car.

"Can I give you some advice?" Howe said. Jack's eyes narrowed, which the lawyer seemed to take as agreement. "Alex is a smart kid. She's strong. You don't need to talk down to her. Treat her like a normal human being. She might be skeptical about you to begin with, but she's predisposed to love you. You're her father and she's been wanting one all her life. If you give each other a chance, I think you'll find that pretty soon you won't know how you ever lived without her."

"You sound like you're speaking from experience."

"More like hope," the lawyer said with a rueful smile. "I've been trying to adopt for almost a year now, but adoption agencies aren't exactly thrilled by the fact that I'm single and work 80-hour weeks." He hesitated. "If the result of your DNA test is negative…I might try to adopt Alex myself."

Something in Jack cringed at the thought of _that_ particular possibility. "I don't think that will be necessary," he said stiffly.

They shook hands and Jack climbed into the front seat. He looked over his shoulder to see that Alex had curled up, her head resting on Lemon's arm and her eyes closed.

"Everyone okay?" he said.

"We're great," Lemon said, stroking the girl's hair with a soft look in her eyes that made Jack's chest ache.

* * *

Jack and Lemon were both on their best behavior for the flight back. Alex, who didn't seem to have slept much since her mother's death, climbed into Lemon's lap shortly after takeoff and promptly fell asleep.

"She seems very taken with you," Jack remarked, pulling Alex's backpack from under the seat in front of her and undoing the zipper.

"What are you doing?" Lemon stared as he began to rifle through the contents of the bag.

"Basic rule of management, Lemon: know your people." He pulled out two juice bottles, a coloring book ( he saw that she had inherited the Donaghy inability to color within the lines), an old stuffed frog that he thought had belonged to Alice, a _Winnie the Pooh_ book, a surprisingly thick dictionary, and a small stack of laminated pictures of Alice.

"You're spying on your own daughter," Lemon hissed. "Jack, that's reprehensible."

"This is basic reconnaissance," he said dismissively. "When she's a teenager and I put hidden cameras in her car to see whether she's making out in it—of course she will, she's a Donaghy after all—_that_ will be spying."

Lemon rolled her eyes, then grimaced. "My legs are going numb. Is that normal?"

Jack looked with some concern at said legs, which were clad in nicely-fitting jeans. "I don't know. Usually when I have someone sitting on my lap I'm too caught up in the erotic nature of our interactions to notice."

Lemon wrinkled her nose. "Gross, Jack."

"What does 'erotic' mean?"

Both adults blinked and looked down at Alex, who was gazing sleepily at Jack.

"Uh, Lemon, why don't you field that question?"

"I don't know, Jack, it seems right up your alley." Lemon smirked at him.

"I'll tell you when you're older," Jack told Alex.

Alex's forehead furrowed. "Can I have my backpack?" Jack and Lemon exchanged a glance. He shrugged and handed it to her. She pulled out the dictionary, flipped through, and, before they could stop her, said, "Erotic. Ad-jec-tive. Of or con-cer-ning sex-u-al love and de-sire." She read the definition silently a few more times, mouthing the words as Jack and Lemon stared. Then she began flipping again until she found another entry. "Sex-u-al. Ad-jec-tive. Of, re-la-ting to, or char-ac-ter-is-tic of—"

"Annnd, that's enough of that," Lemon announced, plucking the dictionary from Alex's hands.

"Do you carry a dictionary wherever you go?" Jack asked.

Alex shrugged and scratched her nose. "I like to understand things."

"Course you do," Lemon said, as proud as if Alex were her own kid. (He knew that Lemon took pride in having been a nerd in high school.) "Gimme five."

She held up her hand. After a moment of cautious consideration Alex high fived it.

* * *

They landed in New York amidst heavy rain. Jack's car stopped at Lemon's apartment first to drop her off.

"I'll see you again soon," Lemon told Alex, ruffling her wild hair.

Jack felt a sudden surge of panic at the thought of being left alone with his daughter. So far Lemon had been the buffer in all of their interactions. What would he and Alex have in common once she was gone?

Apparently in agreement, Alex demanded, with more energy than she'd shown so far, "Where are you going?" She latched onto Lemon's arm with both hands. "You can't go! Don't go!"

Jack said, "Lemon, maybe it would be best if you didn't go."

"I can't stay at your apartment," she said incredulously, though she wasn't trying to pull away from Alex's grip.

"Why not?"

"It wouldn't be appropriate! You've got a new daughter, and I'm your employee. What would people think?"

"I think they'd think that my friend Liz was helping me look after my daughter," Jack said mildly. "Lemon, no one's going to think you stayed over for—" mindful of Alex's linguistic curiosity, he changed what he'd been about to say "—anything inappropriate." When she glanced out the window as if still uncertain, he said, "Please, stay."

"Yeah," Alex said, tugging at her arm. In a loud whisper, glancing sidelong at Jack, she added, "You can't leave me alone with _him._"

That decided her. "Okay," Lemon sighed, slumping back against her seat. The car pulled away from the curb. "But just this once!"

They entered Jack's apartment some thirty minutes later. He'd had Kenneth refurbish one of his spare bedrooms while he was gone and was pleased to find that the page had done a good job. The queen-sized bed had been replaced by a child's bed with purple unicorns (though the sight of the unicorns made him shudder with memories of Kathy Geiss). There was a child-sized dresser and chair and a nice pile of stuffed animals on the floor.

Jack and Lemon worked together to unpack Alex's bags and put her things away while Alex roamed the enormous apartment, clambering over the leather couch and crawling among the stools at the breakfast bar.

"I appreciate this, Lemon," Jack told her as he carefully folded a pair of pants and tucked them into a drawer.

She smiled uncomfortably. "Hey, what are friends for? Anyway, she's a great kid. It's not exactly a trial."

"Still…" He sank down onto the bed. "Lemon, I've said it before but I'll say it again. I don't know what I'd do without you."

Lemon sat next to him and put a tentative hand on his back. "Hey, are you okay?"

"She's a _girl_," he said.

She snorted. "Yeah, I noticed that."

"I think Alice gave Alex a boy's name just because she knew I'd hate it."

"Alex is a fine name for a girl, Jack."

"She's statistically likelier to become a lesbian."

"I'm pretty sure that's not true. And even if it is, so what? You'll still love her."

He raised an eyebrow. "Love?"

"Of course. Don't you love her already? I do."

He smiled and looked over at her. "You'll make a great mother someday, Lemon."

"Yeah," she said wistfully, turning a pillow over in her hands. "Someday." She swallowed. "It's not the fact that she's a girl that's bothering you, is it?"

"Lemon, she's a _girl_."

"As in, she's not some imaginary kid in another state," Lemon said, filling in the blanks as she was so apt to do. "She's a little girl. She's your kid."

"Yeah," Jack said heavily. "Yeah. She's my kid."

Lemon patted his back again with a sympathetic smile. "We should probably put her to bed."

"You're just full of good ideas today, Lemon."

Fortunately, Alex didn't seem to be one of those children who threw tantrums when told to go to bed. Lemon made sure she brushed her teeth and helped her change into her blue pajamas and tucked her in as Jack watched. She kissed Alex on the forehead and shut the door gently behind her.

"Please tell me you have ice cream," she said.

He shot her a look that said: _Who do you take me for?_

Within minutes they were on his couch, digging into a pint of ice cream each and watching a rerun of _MILF Island_.

"She's just so beautiful," an 8th grade boy sighed, gazing worshipfully at Deborah.

"Liz?"

They turned in tandem to see Alex standing behind the couch, rubbing at her eyes with her fists.

"What is it, sweetie?"

"Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?"

A smile played across Lemon's lips. She glanced at Jack as if for permission, though she was already sliding off the couch. He nodded. "Of course I will," she said.

She took Alex's hand and led her back to her room. Jack watched them go.

"These kids," Deborah said in the background. "I just want to eat them up."


End file.
